Lori did not argue the point. Instead, she threw in a new consideration.
“I think we all know that his is going to be the last meeting. When it’s over, we’re all going our separate ways. And I know things don’t look good. The point is, Trevor, you may never see her again. Do you want to miss this chance?”
He kept his eyes down. Lori slipped her arms around her friend’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.
“Besides, she’s the best soldier you’ve got. What did you say she was once? Oh yeah, your sword. And that’s stayed true all these years. For the big jobs you turned to her, like she is an extension of your power kind of like the K9s. That’s why I think you owe it to her. Besides, she used to be in on these meetings, way back when. She’s a part of the original group.”
“Okay, okay,” he answered, although he realized he never really had a choice. With Lori Brewer, most seldom did.
Gordon came last, his arrival announced by the electric hum from the lift chair installed on the stairway after his injury. As far as Trevor could remember, this was only the third time Gordon used it.
He watched as the Intelligence Director move from the lift to his wheelchair with the help of Lori Brewer. Trevor otherwise kept his attention focused on a file folder open at his place at the head of the table.
In the past, the meetings in the conference room at the estate included Trevor’s advisory council. The events of last year had decimated the ranks of that council. Dr. Maple had died in a cemetery outside of Wilkes-Barre while serving as an unwilling investigator into the circumstances of the assassination. Trevor had impaled Evan Godfrey on the White House lawn with Stonewall McAllister’s sword. Moments later, Dante Jones had taken his own life. Most recently, Anita Nehru’s psychological condition made her unfit for service.
Of course, Reverend Johnny had been gone for four years although Trevor often thought he heard Johnny’s voice echoing in the room like a ghost reciting Bible passages.
The meeting on the afternoon of Thursday, May 21, included a less formal congregation but no less an important one. Jon Brewer sat to Trevor’s right. His wife, Lori, sat further down the table sandwiched between General Jerry Shepherd and Lori’s guest, Nina Forest, who wore an expression of a wide-eyed child beholding the wonders of FAO Schwartz.
Brett Stanton and Eva Rheimmer sat next to one another. The former’s eyes had grown more sunken and his hair thinner, possibly a result of Brett re-igniting his love-affair with alcohol.
As for Eva, her body had grown frail-looking from years of hard work on the farm and, no doubt, the stress of coordinating food distribution to a struggling—and now constricting—nation.
Omar sat in a quiet corner of the table with a full ashtray in front of his place. Gordon Knox occupied the foot of the long table in his powered wheelchair.
“Okay, then, let’s get this started,” Trevor pulled his eyes from the papers and did what he usually did: he looked each member of his audience directly in the eye—save for Nina. “Jon and Shep, break it down for us. The quick version. I think we all know the outlook.”
Jon Brewer stood to his full height of over six feet yet he appeared weak and unnerved in the presence of Trevor. He consulted a map mounted on a portable board.
“Preparations to defend the Mississippi are more than sixty percent complete with the anticipation that The Order will follow a similar vein of attack as they have since invading California.”
Trevor explained, “Simply put, they want to kill off our armies. No fancy stuff. They’ll go to where we are encamped.”
“Right,” Jon continued. “To be safe, we’re demolishing just about all river crossings and fortifying the major cities along the way including those to the west of the river like St. Louis. It seems Voggoth’s troops prefer to fight in the open. We made the decision to turn several key cities into hard points. We anticipate this will steer them into the open terrain. At that point we’ll be relying on artillery and defending the east banks of the river.”
Lori Brewer added, “The military has kept open several key arteries across the river to facilitate evacuations of the civilian population.”
“Those refugees could be a real problem,” Trevor said more callously than he intended. “We’re trying to get 1st Corp up to the front while these evacuees are clogging the roads.”
“Trevor,” Lori said, “you’ve already commandeered just about all the rail lines for the army. These people are using the only thing they have left to travel on; the roads.”
Brett Stanton, who served as Director of Industry and Manufacturing, eyed the map and said, “Doesn’t look like we’re making great time pulling back. No, now wait, I’m not trying to be critical, but it looks like The Order could be kicking our butts harder than they’ve been.”
“We might have an answer why,” Shep joined the conversation. His recently-acquired cowboy hat rested on the table in front of him. He told the others news that Trevor and Jon Brewer already knew. “I reckon we’ve got a few more players comin’ to the party. Two days ago our border outpost at Laredo, Texas reported a column of them Redcoats—I’m sorry, we call them Centurians these days, right? As I was sayin’, a nice big bunch of them came across the Rio Grande and are headin’ north on Interstate 35. So far we’ve seen a good dozen heavy artillery pieces and what we think is their version of armored vehicles carrying infantry. The column is about a mile long.”
Jon Brewer said, “Centurians from the south and someone else from the North. Yesterday we lost contact with our garrison at Winnipeg, so a small airborne relief force flew up there from Minneapolis. They ran into these.”
Jon produced a pair of photographs from his pile of stuff and threw the first one onto the center of the table. People leaned forward to see.
The first photograph showed a relatively tight shot of an airship floating through the heavens near the U.S.-Canadian border. More precisely, the airship featured one large zeppelin with two smaller dirigibles attached to either side, making a three-headed flying monster with a big propeller at the back.
The airship wore a rusty color with a sharp gray lightning icon surrounded by a circle on the main fuselage. A big, rectangular gondola with a bank of forward-facing windows served as the obvious bridge area but lines in that undercarriage suggested a modular nature.
Antennas and radio dishes and obvious gun emplacements—resembling miniature howitzers—stuck out from various places all across the ship. At the bow sat an assembly resembling a mix between a transmitter and cannon.
“It’s a Geryon battleship,” Trevor told them. “If you think it’s nothing but a big Hindenburg we can knock down easy, you’re in for a nasty surprise. It can protect itself well against anti-air fire and fighters. That main gun could level this mansion in a couple of seconds. Better yet, from the undercarriage it deploys the Steel Guard; robotic soldiers controlled via virtual reality from technicians onboard the ship.”
Jon threw the second photograph on top of the first. This one showed three of the Battleships.
“Our scouts counted the three and then ran for their lives.”
Trevor said, “From what our Intel says, it seems the Geryon Reich was well-established in Asia before we closed off the Gateways. I must admit, I’m kind of surprised they only sent three, though.”
Trevor glanced around the table again, looking each guest in the eye. When he came to Nina their eyes locked for several seconds until separated by Gordon Knox’s voice.
“There’s more,” Gordon offered a photograph of his own. “Since I decided to come all the way over, I thought I’d bring something special. You know how I love to be dramatic. Maybe someone can tell me what these are…”
Trevor stood and moved around the table to get closer to the photograph. He ended up peering over Nina’s shoulder at the picture. For a moment, his eyes stared at the photograph but his mind drifted somewhere else.
“They’re beautiful,” Lori Brewer said.
“They scare th
e hell outta me,” Shep admitted.
Trevor’s eyes focused on the photograph. He saw a trio of large, seagoing vessels pulling into a dilapidated port. The ships appeared a blend of clipper and ark with golden sales unfurled from vertical tubes rising from brown and red hulls.
Gordon said to Omar, “Your boys need to be congratulated. The work they did to get the SR-71 airworthy has paid off.”
Omar’s mood did not lighten. He sat silent.
“What are you sayin’, Gordon?” Shep asked.
“With the state of things we needed a new intelligence gathering tool. Some of you might not know it, but Omar’s group pulled a Blackbird out of mothballs and got her running again. I just received these shots this morning. They come from the Port of Oakland taken seventy-two hours ago.”
Trevor recognized the ships from his experiences on that other Earth.
“Chaktaw,” he said. “Chaktaw sailing vessels. Voggoth is certainly pulling out all the stops.”
Cross-talk erupted. Trevor, for his part, considered his words carefully as he returned to the head of the table.
“That’s why Voggoth isn’t hitting us hard right now.”
“Wow,” Jon Brewer said. “He’s just waiting for all his friends to get here. More reinforcements. Instead of the Battle of Five Armies, this time it’s going to be the Battle of Six Armies, that is if the Grenadiers can even help this time.”
A new voice entered the conversation, one that sounded timid and shy as if not meaning to be heard. “No big deal,” Nina mumbled in reference to the photographs.
Everyone stopped and gaped at her, even Trevor. Nina blushed.
“What did you say?” He asked.
Nina nearly shriveled into her seat. The thirty-four-year-old woman looked more a bashful teenager called on in class.
“Um, look, I’m just saying it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Eva Rheimmer did not suffer what she thought to be foolishness. “My dear, that’s three new armies to contend with. We’re already in a tough spot.”
“Let her speak,” Trevor said. “Go ahead, Captain. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, sir, unless there’s more to them than these pictures, then there’s, well, I’m just saying there’s not a whole lot of them. Not when you look at what The Order is throwing at us. Listen, if I were these Geryons and Redcoats and whatever, I’d think it’s kind of a waste of time for me to send a couple hundred troops and a few ships here and there all the way across the world to pile on.”
“Pile on?” Trevor asked not so much for clarification, but because it struck a chord with him. “What do you mean?”
“Look, we’re in bad shape. The Order doesn’t need these reinforcements, he grows his own wherever and so far he’s got us on the run. It’s like they’re here just to get in on the action. You know, to claim some of the glory for themselves.”
Trevor listened to her and kept staring right at Nina Forest with a glazed expression. She turned a greater shade of red.
Instead of ridiculing her, he said, “You’re right. Shit yeah, you’re right. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re piling on.”
“Trevor,” Gordon Knox broke in. “No one appreciates Captain Forest’s observations more so than I but let’s be real. These alien governments are tight on forces as it is. They wouldn’t send what little they’ve got off to do battle with us for no reason.”
“You’re wrong, Gordon,” Trevor nodded his head as the answer formed clearly in his mind. “That’s exactly what they’re doing. Voggoth will wait until these guys get into position, then he’s going to pummel the crap out of us. When he’s done he’ll let these guys—the Chaktaw, the Centurians, and the Geryons—go marching right across the Mississippi to finish us off. The same way Eisenhower let De Gaulle and the Free French spearhead the liberation of Paris; more a symbol than a necessity.”
“Okay,” Shep glanced at the others around the table and then to Trevor and said, “Seems to me you know something that the rest of us don’t.”
Silence fell over the room. All of the attendees stared at Trevor, waiting for answers.
Trevor thought, this time, the reply, ‘I just picked it up’ won’t feed the bulldog.
“You’re right, Shep. Truth is, I still don’t know the whole picture, but I think I can make some educated guesses now. Lori told me a little while ago that this is probably the last meeting. I think she’s right. That means maybe the time has come to tell you what I know. I think that would be fair and if there’s any harm in it, well, I don’t think it matters much at this point.”
He felt an eagerness on behalf of his people to hear the truth. He could also sense apprehension. They wanted to know, but they also feared knowing.
“I wish I could tell you the why. I don’t know that for sure yet, although I have my suspicions. But I can tell you what. And it starts like this: eleven years ago the invasion began. Alien animals and alien armies from eight different points of origin. Four years ago we learned something new, something we have not shared with the general public. My trip across dimensions showed that there are also eight different parallel universes with eight different Earths, each one serving as an arena of battle. The difference is that on each of those Earths a different species plays the home team. Here it’s us. Where I went it was the Chaktaw and human beings were a part of the invading force.”
As the only one at the table who had not previously heard any of it, Nina’s eyes widened with each revelation.
Brett Stanton cut in, “Now hold on now, you told us that mankind was originally from Sirius in these other universes. Am I remembering that right?”
“Yes, and we would have been from Sirius here, too, but our life form—our DNA—was transplanted to this Earth millions of years ago.”
Omar spoke for the first time, “My Anita told me that all of the life on this planet is theorized to have come from an original strand of DNA. Evolution created man just as it created timber wolves and trout. But all from an original source.”
Trevor agreed. “Yes. I think that’s why animals came through, too. It’s as if all life from each of the races is being judged but that each version of the DNA developed only one sentient species; one race for each ecosystem at the top of the food chain, I suppose.”
“Judged?” the idea offended Lori. “Judged by whom?”
“That’s a good question,” Trevor did something he rarely did anymore; he smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. It did not work. They greeted his smile with a collection of gazes ranging from blank to shocked.
“Near as I can guess, all of these universes—including ours—are secondary. Maybe that’s not the right word. What I mean is, somewhere there is a core universe, or cosmos. One where humanity and all the other races evolved over billions of years. That’s who I think is behind this. They set the stage and wrote the rules.”
“So we’re just—we’re not—” Nina’s expression suggested amazed and sad together. “We’re not important. Just tools or pawns. Machines?” And she looked to him with the expression of a child searching for assurance.
Trevor saw the damage that idea did to Nina, a woman who often questioned her humanity. Trevor could imagine the thoughts going through her mind; thoughts of self-loathing, of smallness. When he had first met her, she felt life held nothing for her other than fighting. With time she learned otherwise, only to forget again.
“No. No I don’t believe that at all,” Trevor told everyone in the room but his eyes held on Nina. “You raised a daughter. Is she just a tool? Of course not. What about you, Lori? Is Catherine a machine? I know—I know I’m not,” but he wondered. “We are living, thinking beings who had lives before all this turned our world to Hell. We’re not fighting because we want to, we’re fighting because we have to.”
Eva Rheimmer asked in a bitter tone, “You said something about rules?”
“I don’t have a handbook, Eva. But look at our nuke
s. They don’t work. The beings who pulled all this together had the power to do that. Something at the sub-atomic level, I’ll bet. Same with bio weapons. I don’t think weapons of mass destruction are allowed. The folks behind this want a slug fest.”
Lori wondered, “Are they—are they Gods? Our God?”
“No,” Trevor felt sure of that. “Highly-evolved beings is my guess. What looks like magic to us is probably just incredibly advanced technology. They probably don’t even look like humans anymore, or Chaktaw or Geryons. We’re what they were a couple of eons ago.”
Omar, his accent completely gone, joined the discussion once more. “Before our world changed, there were theorists hypothesizing about an eventual technological singularity; a moment when our computers and machines became so advanced and so intertwined with people that it would change the nature of our existence. That mankind would become something unrecognizable, perhaps outgrowing our bodies, perhaps transcending the physical laws of the universe as we understand them.”
Trevor thought of the Old Man and how he seemed a projection. “Maybe even things like—things like time will become irrelevant.”
“Now hold on here,” Shepherd leaned forward. “Who said we had to fight in all this? If this is some kind of game, I’m sick of playin’. I’ve watched a lot of good people get cut down and the idea that this is sport doesn’t sit good with me.”
“It’s not that easy,” Trevor answered while most of the table nodded in agreement with Shep. “I don’t think ‘sport’ is the right way to characterize it. A challenge. A demonstration. A contest, maybe. Point is, we haven’t got a choice. Once they made us a part of this we had to win.”
Lori stubbornly asked, “And why is that?”
“The Feranites. The Red Hands.”
“Huh?”
“They lost. I saw it when The Order had me the last time. They’re gone now. Actually, they’re worse than gone. Voggoth turned them into something horrible. I think you could say that they’re in Hell, now. All of them across all the universes.”
Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion Page 12